


Kaito Kaitou

by DragonSorceress22



Category: Danny Phantom, Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: (because it's me. of course there's kidnapping), Don't copy to another site, Humor, I am meanest to my favorite characters, Kaito is still Kid, M/M, Post-Conan Kudou Shinichi, Shinichi is still a detective, Two Shot, feelings of violation, half-ghost!Kaito, mostly - Freeform, slightly supernatural AU, thank you kaishin discord, this ended up being a way longer fic than I meant to write, this ended up being a way more serious fic than I meant to write, traumatic kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27650224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/pseuds/DragonSorceress22
Summary: What if, instead of crazy robot scientist guy, sixteen-year-old Kaito is kidnapped by an unbalanced, ghost-obsessed billionaire who experiments on him, turning him half ghost?
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Comments: 32
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a Danny Phantom crossover mostly for the “magic” system and for a bad guy to fight. You don’t _really_ need to be super familiar with that show to read this fic.
> 
> This idea was sparked by the kaishin discord. [Kiwili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiwili) posted a prompt: “Kaito is a ghost / has ghost powers and instead of knocking people out and disguising as them, he straight up possesses them.”
> 
> Warning: As always, _always_ happens with me, the prompt inspired a fic… and that fic wandered away from the prompt. Sorry Kiwi… ^.^; Someone should write for that actual prompt!
> 
> Beta’d by [solomonara](http://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara/works)!

Kaito still had nightmares about it. He’d been sixteen, had just discovered the truth about his father’s life and death, had just resurrected Kaitou KID.

Had then been snatched off the street post-heist and locked up in some creepy basement lab.

In his nightmares, he relived it: The eerie green glow of burbling tanks lined up against the walls; the cold metal and relentless straps of the lab table beneath him; the impeccable suit, fine grooming, and haughty vocabulary of his captor. It was straight out of a horror film, and yet… not. This was no distant, black and white, two-dimensional thing. He was _in_ it. Immersed. Surrounded.

Trapped.

The man had begun with questions. Not many – he clearly liked to be the one talking, and he’d come up with answers of his own.

“I thought you surely were at least _part_ ghost. But here you are, days later, still strapped to this table.” He was disappointed. “If you’re not part ghost, what was behind your disappearance? Your return? _How can you do the things you do_?” He was angry. “No matter. I’ll find out what you are.” He was confident.

It didn’t matter what Kaito said. The man took his samples, ran his scans, and then… he became thoughtful. Without explanation, he seemed to switch gears.

The injections started. The electrical currents. The _tearing_ of Kaito’s very DNA. Kaito’s mind finally shut it out, shut down, escaped to darkness.

And when he woke he was hovering over his body. _No_. Hovering _in_ his body. Above the lab table. Free of the restraints that were still locked over nothing at all. Kaito jerked back from the scene and fell through the thick stone wall of the lab, tumbling out into a grand and lavish study.

He kept going. He ran and didn’t look back.

The day Kaito ran, when he finally made it home, back to his empty house, he dragged himself up to the bathroom. It was a shock to find he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. His skin was almost as white as his suit. His hair was unnaturally dark with hints of _blue_. His eyes… were they glowing?

Tentatively, he flipped off the light. They _were_. Just faintly but… yes.

Kaito turned the light back on and sat heavily on the toilet lid. He stared at his gloved hands.

“What did he do to me?”

It was just a whisper, just a sentence, just a question. But it made it all sink in. Something had been _done to him_. He wrapped his arms around himself. He felt violated. He’d been changed. It was like he didn’t know himself anymore.

He slipped down to the floor and cried.

This time when he woke, it felt like a dream. He was still on the bathroom floor, cold and sore, but when he pulled himself up against the edge of the sink, the face in the mirror was normal. Sunken maybe. Drawn and tired, surely. But normal. His skin, his eyes, his hair. Could he be so lucky? Had it all been a hallucination?

Shakily he checked his pockets. Empty. They were all empty. It _wasn’t_ a dream.

He retreated to the KID room.

He felt safer once he was there. No one could find him. No one could hurt him. He put KID’s clothes away and dressed in the clothes he’d left there before that heist. His phone was still in his jeans pocket, but it was dead. He didn’t want to go back up to his room to charge it, but he did.

The phone sluggishly woke, and before the barrage of missed calls and texts he caught sight of the date. His heist had been eight days ago.

Shaking again, Kaito texted Aoko, let her know he was okay, then called the police. They’d been looking for him, of course, and he told them everything he could but… Kaitou KID created great gaping slashes in his story, left questions unanswered, and he knew that because of his lies and omissions the police would likely never apprehend his assailant.

He’d eventually make a tentative peace with that.

He was checked into a hospital then. He was surrounded by friends and family. He’d be okay.

_Two years later…_

Kaito was having the time of his life as Kaitou KID. He was still just as determined as ever to complete his father’s mission and bring his killer to justice. In between that, though, he played with his task force and with the Guys in White – the world’s most ludicrous ghost hunting agency. Absolutely everything about them was precisely as ridiculous as it sounded. Even Nakamori dismissed them with about as much consideration as one might show a gnat at a picnic.

In time, Kaito had begun to explore the changes he’d gone through at sixteen. He knew his powers inside and out now, and practiced with them fastidiously so that he’d have absolute control. He never, ever used them for heists.

To Kaito, it seemed the obvious choice. His father hadn’t needed any supernatural assistance. Kaito would uphold KID’s name with stage magic alone and live up to that standard. And if that choice meant his favorite detective could still play the game (and as a bonus, made utter fools of the Guys in White who would continue without a lick of proof that Kaitou KID was a real phantom) so much the better.

The real boost Kaito’s powers gave him was confidence. He could be _utterly_ fearless, take the highest of risks without worry. After all, if he was ever truly in a pinch, he could turn invisible, walk through walls, possess people, fly without a glider, and shoot energy from his hands. There was no such thing as getting cornered.

It dulled the fun. Just a little bit.

But that was what tiny genius detectives were for.

It wasn’t long at all before rivalry twisted into friendship, and friendship bloomed into love.

_A year after that…_

“Ascend! Retreat! Do something!”

In the cockpit of the white helicopter, the Guys in White intern gritted her teeth, pulled up on the joystick beside her, and slowly eased off of the left pedal. The helicopter curved and rose away from the skyscraper’s roof even as gunfire echoed after them.

“Th-They stopped,” Operative O said after a good stretch of distance had been achieved.

“Halt retreat!” Operative K ordered.

The intern rolled her eyes and adjusted again, turning and holding the chopper so that the side door faced the action on the now distant roof.

“It’s too far to see. Time for the Whites of Their Eyes Goggles.”

K and O clamped their goggles over their sunglasses in synchrony and zoomed in.

“So… I know violent _human_ crime isn’t really our division,” the intern said into her headset. “But shouldn’t we at least, maybe, call the police?”

“Great idea, Intern 1!”

“Execute police calling maneuver at will!”

The intern sighed and made the call.

On the rooftop, Shinichi staggered under his captor’s gun. He’d come up to the roof excited and admittedly distracted. It was his first heist back in his own body and he’d been eager to see the look on KID’s face.

Instead, five men had set upon him just as he’d stepped out of the stairwell, and had beaten him until he was barely conscious. Then one had hauled him to the edge of the roof and put the barrel of his gun to Shinichi’s head. The other four men lined up in a row between them and the roof access door, armed and ready for KID to arrive.

What came next happened so fast almost no one could be sure of the events at all. Almost.

The door opened. KID saw Shinichi, then the guns. The four men opened fire.

KID’s eyes flared blue in both anger and desperation, two thoughts clashing in his mind: _Shinichi_ and _No such thing as being cornered._ His body loosed its hold on that plane of existence and the bullets passed harmlessly through him. He took a step forward.

Fear and alarm broke over the men’s faces. They kept firing but KID just kept walking. On the other side of the stunned line of gunman KID resolidified, drew, and fired his card gun all in such quick succession that the man holding Shinichi didn’t realize his gun was gone until it hit the rooftop with a clatter.

“H-Here, take ‘im!” the man stammered, and shoved Shinichi toward KID.

Shinichi – injured, baffled, relieved – stumbled and fell against KID, held up only by the supporting arm KID wrapped around Shinichi’s back.

KID’s other hand was full of sleep gas bombs. He held his breath and let them go.

Shinichi woke to cool air rushing across his face.

“Oh good, I was hoping you hadn’t inhaled too much,” KID’s voice said from just above him. He looked up. KID was smiling, bright moonlight playing in his eyes and his strong arms cradling Shinichi as they glided through the night sky. Part of Shinichi immediately wanted to get an arm over KID’s shoulder for a more secure hold but the rest of him was in pain, and was concerned about moving around too much this far above the ground.

KID timed their landing so that they touched down neatly on a bit of riverbank underneath a train overpass. He didn’t put Shinichi down, though.

“Are you okay? Do we need to go to a hospital?” His hold tightened a little. “…Are you gonna change back?”

“What?” Shinichi blinked a few times. “No, no, we’re pretty sure this is permanent. As for a hospital…” He glanced quickly around then back at Kaito in the dark. “That depends. Your eyes… I might be hallucinating.”

KID tensed, fear slicing right through the joy that had leapt in his heart. Very slowly he let Shinichi down. Confused, Shinichi stayed close, following alongside KID to the edge of the river.

KID stared into the calm, shadowy water. The reflection of his glowing eyes stared back. “You’re not hallucinating. This is–” He cut himself off. _What?_ Kaito’s brain demanded. _A ‘condition’? Is that seriously what you were about to say? He knows enough of the story. He deserves the rest._ “It’s– I’m–” He looked down at his gloved hand and squeezed it into a fist to keep it from trembling. Then he let go of the transformation.

Shinichi took a reflexive step back from the white light that flared and passed over Kaito’s body. When it faded, the glow was gone from his eyes. In the dark, that was all the difference Shinichi could see.

“I think… I’m missing something,” Shinichi decided.

“And I’m willing to fill in those gaps,” Kaito answered earnestly. “But just, before that… You’re okay? And you’re you again?” There was a breathless sort of tremor in his voice.

Shinichi smiled. “Yes.”

When he opened his arms Kaito rushed into them, both of them holding tight and laughing even as Kaito gave in to a rain of overwhelmed tears.

They went back to Kaito’s house together but, despite Shinichi’s gentle prodding, despite the exhaustion and the trials of the day, Kaito couldn’t sleep without finally telling Shinichi everything.

It was better that way, Kaito realized later. Shinichi had been far too tired to ask questions. He’d listened and supported Kaito through each relived trauma, and held him through the night to keep the familiar nightmares at bay.

Once Shinichi had had time to process and let everything sink in, though, the questions began in earnest. A certain scientific curiosity was piqued and Kaito quickly went from a cautious testing of Shinichi’s “weird” tolerance to enjoying this new type of “magic” show.

Eventually, telling and showing Shinichi everything was no longer frightening, only freeing – even after Kaito found out about Agasa’s ecto-hobbies. Finding out Shinichi’s neighbor had a basement lab and a keen interest in the “ghost zone” had initially been terrifying, but even _that_ slowly transitioned to being more educational than anything once he’d been convinced of his safety in that space.

It was like Kaito had been running a marathon for the entire three years since his kidnapping but this, now, was the finish line. Shinichi knew the final secret and loved him as he was.

Kaito finally felt _whole_.

~

In a hidden lab in a castle in Wisconsin, a dedicated server continually logged data from the tapped Guys in White gear. There, nestled among countless wasted hours, a phantom thief appeared. Vlad Masters _finally_ had proof that his project from three years ago was a success. He’d certainly had his doubts. Why would someone use stage magic if they didn’t have to? And a stage magician might have managed a human escape from his lab.

But now he knew the truth. Kaitou KID _was_ half ghost.

Vlad made plans to take his jet back to his mansion in Japan at the first opportunity.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a nice night so Kaito and Shinichi stopped for ice cream on their way home from a late movie. Sitting at a little table outside the shop, chatting under the sounds of light traffic and the city night, they couldn’t have known what was approaching.

“Ah, there you are, my boy.”

Shinichi glanced up but Kaito had frozen so completely he might have been carved in stone. An American in a fine suit, smooth silver hair tied back in a neat ponytail and trimmed in a clean goatee, was standing beside their table. His hand came to rest in bold, confident familiarity on Kaito’s shoulder.

“It’s been ages, hasn’t it? I know I’m interrupting, but I wonder if we might have a little chat, just the two of us.”

His smile was amicable if a little sharp-edged. His Japanese was smooth and formal.

And Kaito’s stillness broke into trembling.

Shinichi’s eyes felt wide. Like an instinct, he grabbed for Kaito’s hand under the small table and turned a furious glare up at the stranger.

“ _Leave_ ,” he snarled, surprising himself with the ferocity of it. All he knew was that Kaito’s hand was cold, his face pale, his shoulders and head bent inward, closed off. He kept unblinking eyes fixed on the table. This reaction wasn’t the same as his terrified thrashing in the throes of a nightmare, but the _fear_ was.

Vlad Masters blinked his mild surprise at Shinichi when his little metal chair screeched back on the pavement and he shoved to his feet. The one other couple seated a few tables away were paying attention now, but an audience had never ever stopped his deductions before.

“It was _you_ ,” Shinichi accused. “ _You_ abducted Kaito three years ago, didn’t you.” He was pleased to find they were of a height once he was on his feet. Shinichi was no fighter but he was young and athletic and used to trouble. This forty-something man, with his perfect posture and expensive shoes, wouldn’t get away.

Vlad’s smile, though, suggested otherwise. He turned that smile back down on Kaito. “I see your friend has taken a disliking to me for some reason.” His tone held that same mild surprise his eyes had. “I’ll just call on you again later, then, how’s that. Take care, son.” And, hands slipping into his pockets, Vlad Masters walked away.

“Wait–!” Shinichi shouted, drawing wary looks from the other couple and from pedestrians on the street. He lunged to give chase and halted just as abruptly at the ice cold grip that snapped onto his wrist.

“Shinichi,” Kaito whispered to the table. “Don’t.”

For a stunned moment Shinichi stared down at Kaito. Then his free hand fumbled his phone from his pocket and he quickly snapped a picture of the man’s retreating back. Once Masters was gone from view Shinichi slid slowly back into his seat across from Kaito, their knees bumping under the little table.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” he asked, voice low. “We should tell the police. He–” The next words caught in his throat just in time and he swallowed them. He’d been about to say, “He said he’d come back,” but that was the last thing Kaito needed to hear right now. “I’ll talk to Megure-keibu,” Shinichi said instead. “We’ll stay at my place tonight. Okay?”

Kaito just nodded, silent.

Shinichi texted Megure in the cab home, only saying that there was something he needed to discuss. Megure must have been out on a case because he didn’t respond. They turned in for the night as soon as they got home, but Shinichi kept the phone close in case Megure did answer. His only other concern was making sure Kaito felt the constant warmth and security of Shinichi’s arms around him for the whole of the night.

Vlad Plasmius, fanged and mantled and impenetrably confident, phased through the walls of the Kudou manor and hovered beside the bed with his hands folded behind his back.

“Well,” he said aloud, looking down at the two men wrapped around each other in sleep. “‘Friend’ indeed. I see I was mistaken.”

Kaito woke with a jarring shudder that shook the sleep from Shinichi as well. For one bleary moment he thought Kaito’s renewed fear was the result of a nightmare, but then he followed his eyes and took in the _ghost_ hovering beside the bed. It wasn’t a leap for him to make the connections between Kaito’s fear, Kaito’s abilities, and the reappearance of his captor just hours before. Shinichi shoved himself upright and placed himself solidly between the ghost and Kaito as best he could with the two of them kneeling on the mattress.

“You were involved too?” Shinichi demanded.

“It’s the same guy,” Kaito said tonelessly from behind him. “He’s… like me.”

Shinichi saw it instantly then. The same build. The same posture. The same goatee and hair, though it was black now and free of its tie, standing up on his head. This ghost was Vlad Masters.

“Vlad _Plasmius_ ,” Vlad began magnanimously with a flourishy little bow. “You and I both know the importance of a secret identity, I imagine,” he added to Kaito. “As you say, I’m like you, and that is exactly why I’d like to speak with you, my boy. I’ve seen how you’ve come into your power and I admire your prudence with it. We should be _partners_ , you and I. All you lack is knowledge. I can give you that and more.” He held a black-gloved hand out to Kaito, his tone and body language exceptionally welcoming.

Kaito’s stomach flipped in horror and disgust. Anger flashed hot inside him, melting the chilled rigor of shock and fear. “ _No_.”

Plasmius sighed. “All right then.” Far too quick to defend against or even react to, Vlad grabbed Shinichi in a chokehold and hauled him up off of the bed. Shinichi’s feet kicked out, missing the floor as Vlad continued to hover, Shinichi’s weight no apparent burden at all. Shinichi clutched at the arm squeezing tight under his chin but his vision was already going dark.

“Shinichi!” Kaito was abruptly on his feet, standing on the mattress. White energy snapped around him and he let his body change. KID’s cape unfurled at his shoulders, the monocle resting glassy cold against his cheek, the hat nestled in his pitch dark hair. His eyes glowed fierce in the darkness.

Those eyes were the last things Shinichi saw before passing out.

“Let him _go_ ,” KID growled.

“Hmm. Make me,” Vlad replied with a grin, and KID launched at him, sloughing the reins of gravity and physics all at once as he made contact. His timing was flawless: enough contact to let his powers and his momentum transfer, too little to do any harm. All three of them went intangible and sailed through the walls of the Kudou manor, right out into the front yard.

They became solid again just in time to meet the grass, Vlad first with Shinichi and KID on top of him. KID pulled Shinichi away and laid him by the bushes along the front of the house. He was unconscious, but he was breathing.

Plasmius rose not to his feet but simply upright and floating above the grass, as though obeying gravity was more of an effort than not. “I _gave_ you these powers,” he chided KID. “You realize that, don’t you?” With a quick little motion like pulling taffy between his hands, Vlad created a crackling ball of pink energy and launched it at KID while he was still bent over Shinichi. It hit him in the back and sent him careening into the bushes.

KID blinked hard and gasped, scrambling to free himself from the tangle of snapping branches. He’d never been hit with something like that before. It stung, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Vlad’s energy wasn’t a bullet or a laser, more like a blunt force hit with the stinging edge of a low-power taser. KID lifted himself right out of gravity’s grasp and hovered forward between Plasmius and Shinichi. “All you did,” KID snarled at Vlad. “Was kidnap and torture me.”

“Oh ‘torture’ is going a bit far,” Vlad dismissed. “I’m offering you power _and_ , I might add, with none of the painful side effects that were forced upon me in my time.”

“Am I supposed to be sympathizing now? Am I supposed to be _grateful_? I’m not interested in anything you have to say. Get lost, and don’t _ever_ come back.”

Plasmius sighed. “Fine then. The hard way. Isn’t it always.” With a small _pop_ each, three more Vlad Plasmiuses appeared before KID in the yard.

KID’s eye twitched and his lip curled. “Really? Illusions? I’m a _magician_.” The build of hot blue energy in KID’s fists came as naturally as flight and he let loose a blast at the Vlad directly in front of him. “I won’t be distracted!”

He had a moment of satisfaction as that Vlad went down before the other three charged up and blasted KID all at once.

The pain was different this time, more penetrating and with triple the force. A shout tore out of KID before he dropped to the ground.

KID’s gloves clawed into the grass as he fought to catch his breath. It hadn’t been an illusion. This man could _duplicate_. It wasn’t something that had ever occurred to Kaito to try. He didn’t think he’d want to even if it had. He pushed to his hands and knees.

Vlad, feeling infinitely unthreatened, reassimilated his copies and stepped up to KID. “Do you see now? You lack _knowledge_. You don’t even know what you’re capable of. My offer stands.”

“Can’t… take a hint, can you,” KID grated out, and he grabbed hold of Plasmius’s leg. There was a sizzle of clashing power as KID fed his energy directly into Plasmius before something snapped, a circuit shorting, and the recoil tossed them both back, KID into the bushes and Vlad into the yard’s stone wall.

Vlad was first to recover. “Heh, well well,” he murmured to himself, brushing dust from his clothes. “Incidentally, a good first attempt at a rather advanced technique.” It was, he reflected, just another demonstration of what made Kuroba Kaito such a prime subject. He had strength, agility, flexibility in both mind and body. And he was _smart_. A high return investment to be sure, but high risk as well. Someone that intelligent would be difficult to control. So… continue trying to sway him? Destroy him now? Or…

KID had gotten to his feet again. Had stepped in front of Shinichi again. Plasmius grinned.

A short beam of blue energy shot Vlad’s way, followed by another and another, but this time Vlad just blocked them with a pink energy screen, one hand holding off the assault while the other covered an exaggerated yawn.

“We can do this all night,” he informed KID. “Or…” Invisible, a second Plasmius split off and circled around behind KID. The specter sank into Shinichi’s body and blue eyes snapped open wide.

“You can _give up_.”

KID whirled, abandoning his attack – abandoning _everything_ – at those words in Shinichi’s voice.

Plasmius didn’t hesitate to shoot KID in the back again. KID’s breath was punched out of him and he fell to his hands and knees in the grass. Shinichi stood and looked down at him with glowing eyes, pink energy overshadowing the blue.

“This boy is important to you,” Not-Shinichi said with Shinichi’s voice. “Shame if something were to happen.”

KID could only stare. Vlad came up behind him.

“Do you know the principles of possession?” he asked lightly. “Can you force me out without hurting him? Or will you admit that there are things that I can teach you. That’s all I want to do.”

“Yeah?” KID asked, his voice raw, his head bowed, kneeling at Shinichi’s feet. “Then let him go.”

“No,” Not-Shinichi replied, and Kaito flinched at the sound of his voice. “You don’t listen unless I have him.”

“I won’t listen regardless,” KID growled, and it was from behind Vlad.

Vlad whirled. There were three more KIDs filling the yard, each of them flickering in the glow of bright blue energy roiling in their hands.

“ _Let him go_.”

The command echoed in the enclosed yard and at first Plasmius was impressed. But then it clicked. He turned his back on the copies.

“Illusions,” he said, smug, but there was no one there to hear it. KID was gone. _Shinichi_ was gone. He’d been distracted. Illusion work wasn’t even something he knew half-ghosts could do. And now his clone was possessing someone he’d utterly lost track of.

Things were getting interesting indeed.

In the mere seconds of Vlad Plasmius’s distraction, KID had drugged, bound, and blindfolded Shinichi, then hauled him away invisibly.

When the drug wore off and the offshoot of Plasmius could stir its vessel again, he found himself blind and tied to a chair. He couldn’t say where he was. Indoors, if he had to guess. There was a rumbly sort of humming all around him, and something kept bumping the chair he was bound to.

“Well?” KID’s voice, smug but impatient, was raised loud and clear over the persistent whirr and thumps. “You can’t do anything while you’re possessing someone who’s all tied up, and you don’t know where we are so your other half or whatever can’t find us. Get out here and let’s finish this.”

“You couldn’t beat me before,” Not-Shinichi said, a sharp grin stretching below the blindfold. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ve gained an advantage. You can’t protect this boy from me. I could leave him and possess him again as many times as I like.”

“I invite you to try,” KID replied, but his voice was tight. “Step one: _get out of him_.”

“And if I don’t? You would condemn the poor boy to imprisonment? Doesn’t this feel the least bit hypocritical to you?”

“Do you know the principles of clone management?” KID’s voice had taken on a distinctly patronizing tone. “How long can you remain split?”

“Indefinitely.” The confident answer came with a stunted shrug, the ropes restricting any exaggerated movement.

“Thirty-six hours,” KID replied, and Vlad could hear the cruel smile. “And even that span is theoretical.”

Not-Shinichi remained still and silent this time.

“We can do this all night,” KID continued. “Or you can get out here now and put an end to it.”

Vlad considered his options. He didn’t know how KID, who hadn’t even recognized his clones as anything more than illusions, could have possibly known about the time constraints, but that didn’t change the fact that Plasmius would win in a fight. Without warning he left Shinichi’s body, energy already dancing at his fingertips.

“Kaito–” Shinichi gasped the moment he was free.

“Too bad!” Vlad declared, taking aim.

“See ya~!” KID said with a little wave from the other side of a glass partition.

Vlad had just enough time to spot the cell phone set to speaker that KID had been using to speak with him, then look down at the disc-like robot bumping along between the chair legs and walls of the small room. And then, with an all too familiar sucking force he couldn’t even begin to resist, his whole being was slurped under the disc-vacuum and crammed into its tiny bin.

On the other side of the glass KID turned to Agasa and Haibara. “It worked!” He turned again, already reaching for the door, but Haibara grabbed his cape and yanked him back.

“ _Stop_ , idiot!” she snapped. “We need to turn it off first.”

“Oh. Right.”

KID left the basement lab and Agasa opened the door to the little sectioned off room. He caught the Roomba as it trundled past Shinichi’s feet. “All clear!” he called once the robot shut down.

Shinichi’s head turned toward his voice. “Agasa-hakase?”

Haibara was already loosening the ropes but she couldn’t reach the blindfold. KID was there in a blink though, and he was the first thing Shinichi saw when the cloth lifted from his eyes.

“Shinichi?”

“Kaito,” Shinichi sighed. “You’re okay.”

The ropes fell away and KID took Shinichi’s hand, pulling him to his feet and wrapping him in the most encompassing hug he’d ever experienced.

KID appeared in the Kudou manor’s yard – insubstantial, an illusion, but a conscious one. Once Kaito knew it was possible, the path seemed utterly clear to him. He wasn’t splitting his body – wasn’t remotely willing to even try at this point – but he’d been splitting his mind, compartmentalizing, for years. This sort of ghostly astral projection came as naturally to him as thieving. He drifted through the house and around the property but found no trace of Vlad.

In Agasa’s basement, KID opened his eyes. “Looks like he’s gone.”

“What do we do with his other half?” Shinichi asked. KID looked to Agasa.

Agasa hummed as he thought. “Well, I think… we seal this up and leave it alone,” he said, patting the Roomba. “It’ll be gone within thirty-six hours.”

KID felt a chill run through him. “And… what will that do to… _him_? I mean, the rest of him.”

Agasa waved him off. “The clone will break down. Revert to energy. It shouldn’t have any effect on the ghost who made it.”

KID hesitated then nodded. “I guess… it’s over then?”

“Unless he comes back,” Shinichi put in. He hated to suggest it, didn’t want Kaito to be scared, but it was a real possibility and they couldn’t ignore it.

“Ah, in case he does…” Agasa rummaged in a file cabinet then handed Shinichi a pamphlet.

“What’s this?”

“Instructions on theoretical energy keying!” Agasa announced proudly. “I wrote it myself!”

KID and Shinichi just stared.

“Ahem. So, I believe that Kaito-kun should be able to work with your energy signature over time and key it to his own, the way you might re-key a lock,” he explained. “And once that happens no one else will be able to possess you. Give it a try!”

Shinichi and KID exchanged raised eyebrow glances, but they thanked him all the same and headed home.

Back in their room they stared at the unmade bed in the dim light of sunrise behind the curtains. Kaito still hadn’t let go of his transformation, like he couldn’t quite relax. Shinichi took his hand and held up the pamphlet.

“Step one,” he said, smiling.

The first suggestion outlined in the pamphlet was to let Kaito’s transformation energy wash over Shinichi as often as possible. KID smiled too and wrapped Shinichi in a close hug as he finally changed back. The suit and cape were traded for the tank and shorts he’d been sleeping in. The silky blue-black of KID’s hair faded to a softer dark brown. The glint of his eyes shifted to a more normal but no less striking blue.

Shinichi shivered a little but grinned at him. The hairs on his arms were standing up, his skin prickling gently from the course of the energy passing over him. “Feels good,” he said, and kissed him lightly.

Kaito let out an exhausted sigh. “I don’t wanna sleep yet,” he said. “I feel…”

“Dirty?” Shinichi finished, nose scrunching. “I know what you mean.”

“Bath?” Kaito suggested.

“Together?” Shinichi asked, and when Kaito just hummed, innocently noncommittal, he smirked. “Dirty,” he said with a laugh, and they headed for the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think if I were to do a count, there would be an embarrassingly large number of my fics that end with Kaito and Shinichi heading off to a bath and/or shower lmao And that’s not even counting the fics that just straight up take place IN the bath and/or shower XD Oh well~ :) I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading~♥


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